


are we out of the woods yet

by reinacadeea



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, reaction fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 22:37:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reinacadeea/pseuds/reinacadeea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>reaction piece to the April 8th episode</p>
            </blockquote>





	are we out of the woods yet

**Author's Note:**

> this was written a week ago. i'm surprised how accurately i managed to get the situation out of spoilers. any irregularities are because of that.

-

Chas doesn’t allow him in the ambulance. Instead, he’s forced to backtrack to his car and ponder what to do next. He can go back to Home Farm and do his best to pretend everything is all right. Or he can go to the pub and pretend everything is all right. 

He puts the car in reverse and speeds off towards the village, going slightly above the limit. The car’s got automat gear, so his right leg bounces up and down restlessly while he tries to focus on the road ahead of him. He can’t get the image of Aaron out of his mind – lying face-down in the mud, completely helpless and barely breathing. He imagines it’s not an image he will forget anytime soon. 

He sees Paddy having a chat with Eric and Val by the shop and he honks, parking the car in front of them and opening the door. “Paddy!” he yells and the man in question startles. 

“Robert?” Paddy says confused. “Is there something wrong?”

“Aaron’s been taken to hospital,” Robert rushes out. “I’ll take you.”

Paddy’s face falls and he looks completely devastated. He jumps into the car with a flustered apology to Val and Eric while they promise to tell Rhona. 

Robert speeds off as soon as the door’s closed and he just wants to close the distance between the village and Hotten where, hopefully, they’ve got Aaron back to full consciousness. 

“I don’t understand,” Paddy says. “What’s happened?”

“He disappeared,” Robert tells him hesitantly. He needs to be honest. He needs to tell someone of the horror of discovering that Chas hadn’t a clue where he had gone either. “We’ve been…” he can’t get the words out. 

“Seeing each other again?” Paddy says helpfully and Robert nods. 

“But Chrissie came back and he had to leave,” he says. “Chas came to have a go and that’s when we realised we hadn’t seen him for hours. We found him lying on the ground.”

Paddy doesn’t say anything until they’ve reached the parking lot for the hospital and Robert turns off the car to follow Paddy inside. He needs to know. 

“I don’t think you should come,” Paddy says cautiously. “I don’t want you to come.”

“You can’t decide that for me,” Robert says angrily. 

“If I see you here or anywhere near him I will personally march up to your wife and tell her about what a cheating bastard you are,” Paddy says and his eyes make it perfectly clear that Robert can’t sweet-talk him into allowing it. He’s stuck. “Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” Robert says bitterly and watches Paddy hurry inside. He punches the wheel and briefly considers saying to hell with Paddy and marching in to demand to know how Aaron is before he punches someone. 

He doesn’t and drives back to the village.

\--

He is hiding in the back of the pub when Andy finds him.

“Val said you drove Paddy to hospital,” Andy says worriedly. “Is it Aaron?”

Robert nods and he doesn’t quite trust his voice. 

Andy sits down beside him. “He’s a good mate of yours, isn’t he?”

Robert leans forward and rubs his eyes. 

“I’ve never seen you this shaken up about a mate.”

“Andy, no offense, but I don’t want to talk about it,” Robert finally snaps. “Aaron is a foolish boy who has forgotten how to take care of himself. Why should the rest of us care? I certainly don’t care.”

“Because he’s your mate and you want what’s best for him?” Andy says tentatively. 

It’s much more than that. But how do you explain this ‘love’ business to someone who doesn’t understand. How can anyone possibly understand that Robert’s pushed Aaron into hospital, that for all intent and purposes he could have prevented Aaron from spiraling. He wouldn’t have had to call the ambulance while Chas was shouting at Aaron to please wake up. He hates Aaron for putting him in this position. He can’t even go home because he’s too scared that he’ll say the wrong thing to Chrissie or Lawrence. 

“Aaron’s just being selfish, you know,” Robert tells his brother. “He just wants the attention.”

“Rob, that’s not true and you know it,” Andy says and Robert hates him for being right. He can’t even hear the words coming out of his mouth – he’s just reacting without filtering the content. Maybe he’ll hurt Andy in the process and he’ll feel just a bit better. 

It’s no use and mostly he just wants to know if Aaron’s alive. 

Aaron’s coughs has only gotten worse recently and they’ve taken on this rattle that sits a bit uneasily in Robert’s stomach and a couple of hours in the mud in April probably hasn’t done anything for. What if he gets a disease? What if his lungs are failing or his heart’s too weak to pump properly? What if Robert could have done something and he didn’t because he’s been too selfish? 

 

Suddenly, he hates Chrissie with a fiery passion that has absolutely nothing to do with her personality or their relationship at all. He hates what she stands for; the ring on his finger and money that gives him prestige and all the money in the world. He’s glad she’s not here, trying to tell him he should just go see Aaron if he’s so worried and him trying to come up with a plausible excuse. He can barely convince Andy he’s developed a friendship with this twenty-three year-old with no future really or any common interests in anything except cars. 

No one gets to see them when it’s just the two of them, the push/pull that has Robert wanting more and more without even realizing it. He needs Aaron to push him and make his life interesting and colourful. 

He needs Aaron full stop. 

“Friendships are a strange thing, my dear brother,” he says resigned and falls back into the sofa. 

“Especially genuine ones,” Andy says kindly. “I suspect you haven’t had loads of those.”

Robert snorts. “Do one.”

Andy claps his shoulder and leaves with a final smile that’s got Robert’s tummy doing a weird regretful somersault. He suspects he’ll always struggle with Andy and everything he represents, but he likes their new-found intimacy that has them open up to each other in such a new way. 

For the first time in his life, he’s got something different tying him to this forsaken village and it’s not some ploy or game. 

Hospital it is then. 

\--

He waits in the parking lot until he sees James Barton picking up an ashen-looking Chas from the entrance. It’s not until then that he slinks inside and asks around for Aaron. 

Paddy is sitting beside an unconscious Aaron in a shared room, separated only with a terribly ugly curtain. Robert wrings his hands and coughs awkwardly, making his presence known. 

“I thought I told you–“ Paddy says angrily, but also strangely defeated, like all the fight’s left him. 

“I didn’t come to pick a fight,” Robert says honestly. 

Paddy gives him a sharp look, but settles backwards into the chair again and folds his hands. 

Robert didn’t expect him to leave, so it only bothers him a little having Aaron’s father figure watching over them both. Chas wouldn’t even have given him that. He hesitantly approaches the bed and sits on the chair that Chas vacated earlier, reaching out a hand to touch Aaron’s wrist. The pulse is steady and most importantly there. 

“Who goes out running with all that gear?” he says softly and traces his thumb over the pulse point. “You’re not a soldier and especially not David Attenborough.”

Aaron shuffles slightly and Robert cracks a tiny smile. He’s always doing that, wrinkling his nose and burrowing deeper into the covers even though he runs ridiculously hot and always wears a shirt to bed. It’s only recently Robert’s even been allowed in the same bed without Aaron covering up. 

“I keep having this picture in my head of you at the quarry,” he says and tries to forget about the outside world for a bit. “You didn’t think I was watching, but you just stared into the water near the edge. I wonder if it’s always like that with you – this extreme inside your head where jumping seems like the only option. It’s not the only option, not when it hurts everyone that loves you.”

It makes it a lot more real, saying it out in the open, especially because Paddy is watching and listening. He means it though this weird feeling that’s solidified around Aaron. 

“I did this to you,” he says. “I realise that and I just need you to be okay now. I won’t let you go through any of it alone.”

It’s a promise he intends to keep, just as he promised to help Andy and look how far they’ve come from this Christmas. He needs Aaron to understand that Robert’s there for him. Maybe not exactly as Aaron would like, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care or won’t honour it. 

“I’ll go now,” he tells Paddy. “Thank you.”

Paddy stares at him, barely there eyebrows furrowed in contemplation. “I’ll tell him you were here.”

Robert gives him a grateful nod and with one last squeeze of Aaron’s wrist, he leaves knowing he won’t have a long time before Chas will be back to watch over her son. 

There is only waiting now.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm reinacadeea on tumblr as well. come say hi!


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